Intel W790 Desktop Sapphire Rapids Workstation & HEDT CPU Platform Detailed: Up To 8-Channel DDR5, OC Support

The full specifications and features of Intel's W790 Desktop Workstation & HEDT CPU platform for Sapphire Rapids CPUs have leaked out.

The latest chipset comparison slide discovered by HXL (@9550Pro) shows us the specs and features of Intel's next-gen workstation families. The lineup will be split into two segments, with C741 for the upper-echelon of server CPUs such as Sapphire Rapids-SP and Sapphire Rapids-SP with HBM (also known as Xeon Max CPUs). The other chipset, the one we are focusing on today, is the W790 and which is designed for the Sapphire Rapids-112L and Sapphire Rapids-64L family. These CPU lineups are geared toward workstations and HEDT users.

Starting with the specs, the Intel W790 CPU platform will entirely utilize PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes coming from the CPU. All Sapphire Rapids Workstation CPUs including Xeon W-3400 & Xeon W-2400 has a vast amount of PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes with the W-3400 family offering up to 112 and W-2400 offering up to 64 lanes directly from the CPU. In addition to the CPU lanes, the W790 'Fishhawk Falls' PCH is also going to offer 16 PCIe Gen 4.0, 12 PCIe Gen 3.0, and 8 SATA 3.0 ports. Following is a breakdown of the lanes available on the workstation/HEDT platform:

As for the memory configurations, the Intel Xeon W-3400 CPUs will offer 8-channel DDR5 support with 2 DIMMs supported per channel while Xeon W-2400 CPUs will offer 4-channel DDR5 support with 2 DIMMs supported per channel on the W790 platform. The Xeon W-3400 CPUs can support up to 4 TB while the W-2400 CPUs can support up to 2 TB capacities at speeds of up to DDR5-4800 out of the box.

All Intel Sapphire Rapids Workstation & HEDT CPUs will come with IA & memory performance tuning options. It is stated that these unlocked performance tuning features will only be available on select SKUs. There will also be integrated Intel Wi-Fi (CNVi) support, up to 14 USB 2 ports, an insane 25 USB 3 ports (5 Gen2x2, 10 Gen2, 10 Gen1), and there will also be VROC PCIe/SATA raid support on the platform. The following are the main features as highlighted by Intel itself:

As expected, the Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Workstation lineup will range from Xeon W9, Xeon W7, Xeon W5, and Xeon W3 segments and will come in both Monolithic and MCM flavors. The lineup includes a total of 17 SKUs of which 8 are part of the Xeon W-2400 and 9 are part of the Xeon W-3400 family. The Xeon W-3400 platform will feature TDPs of up to 350W while the Xeon W-2400 CPUs will feature TDPs of up to 225W.

Starting with the Xeon W9 family, we have the top Sapphire Rapids-WS chip, the Xeon W9-3495X with 56 cores (105 MB L3 Cache) followed by the Xeon W9-3475X with 36 cores (82.5 MB L3 Cache).

The Xeon W7 family features five SKUs which include the Xeon W7-3465X (28 Core), W7-3455 (24 Core), W7-3445 (20 Core), W7-2495X (24 Core), and the W7-2475X (20 Core) variants. The Xeon W7 lineup starts to split the Sapphire Rapids-SP family into the Xeon W-3000 and Xeon W-2000 lines which we will get to in a bit.

Next up, we have the Xeon W5 family which includes the most SKUs, totaling 8. These include the Xeon W5-3435X (16 Core), Xeon W5-3433 (16 Core), Xeon W5-3425 (12 Core), Xeon W5-3423 (12 Core), Xeon W5-2465X (16 Core), Xeon W5-2455X (12 Core), Xeon W5-2445 (10 Core) and the Xeon W5-2435 (8 Core) SKUs.

Finally, we have the Xeon W3 lineup which is the most entry-level segment with just two Xeon W-2000 SKUs, the Xeon W3-2425 (6 Core) and the Xeon W3-2423 (6 Core). The Xeon W3-2423 is the only SKU in the lineup that won't feature hyper-threading support so that's 6 cores and 6 threads.